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The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

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Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#191

Post by tonyedgecombe »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #89
HWR_14 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you are talking about. Microsoft built a Linux compatible subsystem for Windows and also built (well, acquired) .NET VMs for OSX/Linux. It's trying hard to keep people on the desktop - any desktop.

You're kidding, right? WSL is not related to cross-platform GUIs we're talking about, and .NET Core doesn't support Windows Forms/WPF - and probably never will, for the reasons mentioned above.

>.NET Core doesn't support Windows Forms/WPF

It does actually although you are correct in your general point.

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#192

Post by boomlinde »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #151
boomlinde wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this. I've used GTK, Qt, Tk and FLTK software in OSX, Windows and Linux. The rest is usually covered by standard libraries and third party libraries. So I take it this approach is disqualified on your terms for not being meaningful, which raises the question about what "meaningful" means. My own guess is that it's a matter of convenience of distribution: enter an URL and you can start using the app.

None of those UI libs work on Android or iOS.

Qt does.

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#193

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #147

Mobile is also eating the desktop whole. As much as I love personal computers I can't deny the fact that my phone became my main computer due to how convenient it is. I should probably look into Linux phones before the corporations turn my phone into an appliance.

Does it? Any form of productivity app seems to be nerfed on mobile...

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#194

Post by _fat_santa »

torginus wrote: post #106

This is a bit of an aside - but can anyone explain why Electron apps use so much memory/system resources? Is this a fundamental thing or accidental thing and could be remedied rather easily? I wonder why there hasn't been significant effort directed toward this, as this is the number 1 issue of desktop applications today. I have a few guesses/questions: - What kind of data is causing the GBs of memory usage? Is it JS…

I might be wrong here so someone correct me but I believe it's because every time you open a new electron app, you are opening another instance of Chrome. So if you have Chrome, VSCode and Figma running, that's 3 instances of Chrome each eating their respective 2-3GB of memory and associated CPU cycles.

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#195

Post by lotsofpulp »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #185
mrighele wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the reason. Webapps got widespread when the Internet was still mostly consumed on the Desktop, which essentially meant Windows. The main reason in my opinion is ease of distribution: it has always been painful and full of friction for the end user on Windows, and the web made it much easier. You can see how on mobile platforms, where app distribution is not a big problem, native applications are…

Web applications didn't see wide-spread use until after the release of the iPhone. Prior to that most applications were native or Java.

It has to do with mobile networks rolling out usable broadband (3G) that enabled people to be connected anywhere all the time, which coincided with the iPhone 3G release in 2008.

I still remember how awesome it was I could stream music sitting at a train station while browsing the internet.

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#196

Post by MattGaiser »

tcptomato wrote: post #99
MattGaiser wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But are you willing to pay 2x for that extra snappiness?

So you started writing crappy apps because it was easier for you and now you want to be paid double to fix your shit?

Quality is generally more expensive, particularly the finely tuned kind.

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#197

Post by anhanhanh »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #164
admax88qqq wrote: post #91

If desktops could make a platform where I can write my app in one language, host it on my own server and get global distribution running in a sandboxed environment then I'd consider it. The web distribution model is just so much nicer for users and devs. No app stores, no install/uninstall process, no access to system internals. I can deploy an app today and just send a link to my friends for them to use it. It takes…

> If desktops could make a platform where I can write my app in one language, host it on my own server and get global distribution running in a sandboxed environment then I'd consider it. It was called Java and ironically people hated it because it was sluggish and didn't use native widgets. Now we have webapps which reinvent the GUI on almost every site and have built in 100ms+ latencies. Go figure. > The web distri…

> On Windows you could put your binary and libraries in a zip file and distribute to users in any variety of ways, including via web hosting.

Would you really do that though? Or would you run a random exe from a random zip hosted from a random website?

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#198

Post by smackeyacky »

jiggawatts wrote: post #187
smackeyacky wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No linux. Where 25% of .net developers are. Its not going to fly.

25% of .NET developers are on Linux!? Got an actual statistic to back that up? I would estimate more like 0.25%...

I thought I did but I misread one of the graphs on the Stack Overflow 2021 survey. So no.

I use Debian as my daily driver for .NET core and was looking to see how many other developers had dropped Visual Studio for VSCode, but the graph was not how many had switched, but how many want to. My mistake.

I still think ignoring linux for gui apps will hurt microsoft, we all see the success of VSCode and want to build universal apps like that for our clients too.

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#199

Post by HWR_14 »

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #89
HWR_14 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you are talking about. Microsoft built a Linux compatible subsystem for Windows and also built (well, acquired) .NET VMs for OSX/Linux. It's trying hard to keep people on the desktop - any desktop.

You're kidding, right? WSL is not related to cross-platform GUIs we're talking about, and .NET Core doesn't support Windows Forms/WPF - and probably never will, for the reasons mentioned above.

WSL lets people run their Linux apps with Linux GUIs on Windows. It makes Linux apps cross-platform, which makes sense if your business proposition is "literally all software runs on windows, and some software also runs on non-Windows. Choose wisely"

And, IIRC, .NET Core doesn't support WPF forms for legal/trademark reasons. But other MSFT supported .NET Forms libraries that happen to be API/feature compatible work on Windows/OSX/Linux/Android/iOS.

Re: The web is swallowing the desktop whole (2017)

#200

Post by Devasta »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #182
jiggawatts wrote: post #179

What a lot of people don't appreciate is that a GUI platform is a essentially a marketplace like eBay. There are "sellers" and "buyers". The sellers are the developers. The buyers are the users. Real money is often involved in the transaction. Where do sellers go? Where there are the most buyers! Where do buyers go? Where there are the most sellers! Hence, marketplaces with no physical constraints are natural monopol…

Microsoft's big money probably isn't Windows anymore, but Azure. Given that they make so much more money off their cloud offerings, I suspect that they actively want to kill off personal computing entirely. If so, they're doing a good job with recent Windows releases.

With the move to subscription services like Office 365, and the startling number of incompetents that think VDI terminals are acceptable workstations for users, I could definitely see Windows desktop disappearing in the next decade or so, the OS merely being a bootloader for a browser.

Everything will be either a Chromebook or EdgeBook, basically.

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